Hoping someone can help me out. I know we have some smart network/IT guys and gals on here.
So my state/county is doing full online learning for all public schools. I own an indoor sports facility in the area and plan to create a supervised online learning program so parents can drop their kids off during the day and we make sure the kids are engaged in their class time.
We plan to limit enrollment to 30-40 total kids. The kid’s schedules will require all 40 kids to be online at the same time for ~2.5 hrs in the morning and ~2 hrs in the afternoon. I believe the school system is going to use Google Meet for the online video learning.
So with 30-40 kids using video conferencing at once, what type of bandwidth will I need and what type of network am I looking at? Since the kids all need to be spaced out appropriately, hard wiring all the laptops isn’t going to work. They all need to be connected through wifi. I plan to put the kids on tables (2 per table) spread out in our facility which is about 17,000 sq ft. (190ft x 90ft). I’m sure I’ll need at least 2 routers if not more so cover the whole area plus our lobby which is probably another 5,000sq ft. Running a speed test through my phone (5.0ghz wifi) I get 220 Mbps download and 22 Mbps upload speeds with my current internet plan.
Any help with how to go about setting up a network to handle this would be helpful.
Thanks!
Are they going to be participating in the video conference with video of themselves as well or just watching? 220 down should be tons, 22 up with 30-40 kids sending video might be iffy.
Google Meets is a two way platform. You can turn off your mic and camera, but there is still the chat option. I have seen SOME people use it just to broadcast, but normally it is an expectation that everyone is participating. It is a bandwidth hog.
Any fiber available in your area? As noted above, your download is probably okay (not great), but upload will be a problem. Fiber is usually balanced the same on both up and down. I know fiber around here for business can go 1Gbps up and down.
This I do not know. None of the teachers that I know in my county have received much information about how the online program will work. I’ll ask around to see what their spring programs were like. But if there is video and audio of the child going back what upload should I be aiming for?
Yea I would like to think that the kids can interact with the teacher during the session (that would be very helpful with questions, etc.) I wouldn’t put it past the school board to not require it.
Unfortunately, no fiber in my area. I know I can upgrade my internet speed even more though so may just have to bump it up until I reach the upload speed I need.
I don’t know about Google Meet, but Microsoft Teams compresses the video and audio a lot.
I was on in a meeting today where there were 22 participants, all running video and audio, and I was running it through my laptop on the wireless system. I was getting all 20 feeds at the bottom of my screen with no issues.
I assume you get your internet from your cable provider? A business class upgrade of your internet, combined with a high speed modem and a high speed mesh network like Google Mesh may work just fine.
My next question is the kids will be providing their own hardware, I assume? You will probably need someone with some smarts to get them connected and stay connected. I know, kids are smarter than most of us in that area, but technology can be very fickle sometimes.
Yes, I believe everyone is getting some type of Chromebook from the county.
My next question was going to be about hardware and any specialty software that would keep things reliable.
Yes, I believe everyone is getting some type of Chromebook from the county.
My next question was going to be about hardware and any specialty software that would keep things reliable.
I personally would not run Google mesh in a business environment. Check out ubiquity stuff. It’s enterprise grade at an affordable price and has a fantastic UI for management that is easy to understand and yet very powerful.
http://ui.com
Hoping someone can help me out. I know we have some smart network/IT guys and gals on here.
So my state/county is doing full online learning for all public schools. I own an indoor sports facility in the area and plan to create a supervised online learning program so parents can drop their kids off during the day and we make sure the kids are engaged in their class time.
We plan to limit enrollment to 30-40 total kids. The kid’s schedules will require all 40 kids to be online at the same time for ~2.5 hrs in the morning and ~2 hrs in the afternoon. I believe the school system is going to use Google Meet for the online video learning.
So with 30-40 kids using video conferencing at once, what type of bandwidth will I need and what type of network am I looking at? Since the kids all need to be spaced out appropriately,** hard wiring all the laptops isn’t going to work**. They all need to be connected through wifi. I plan to put the kids on tables (2 per table) spread out in our facility which is about 17,000 sq ft. (190ft x 90ft). I’m sure I’ll need at least 2 routers if not more so cover the whole area plus our lobby which is probably another 5,000sq ft. Running a speed test through my phone (5.0ghz wifi) I get 220 Mbps download and 22 Mbps upload speeds with my current internet plan.
Any help with how to go about setting up a network to handle this would be helpful.
Thanks!
I get that hardwiring seems like a huge pain, but I suspect you would have far fewer problems if you hardwired. With a bit of design and some duct tape, you could run wires to each table and get rid of all the wifi headaches that you will have. You would need a spool of bulk cable, connectors, switch and router and a few hours. It isn’t elegant, but IMHO the simplicity and robustness will make up for it.
Been looking through the Ubiquity site. A lot of options. Considering that I’m trying to set up such a small network here should I mainly just be looking to purchase an access point that hits the data rates needed and assume all the other fluff will easily handle what I need? One example is MU-MIMO vs SU-MIMO, while MU-MIMO looks like the best option, do I need that for a 40 person network or should I just not worry about that? There is a lot of marketing jargon on the website that all sounds nice but not sure what is actually needed for a set up like mine.
Been looking through the Ubiquity site. A lot of options. Considering that I’m trying to set up such a small network here should I mainly just be looking to purchase an access point that hits the data rates needed and assume all the other fluff will easily handle what I need? One example is MU-MIMO vs SU-MIMO, while MU-MIMO looks like the best option, do I need that for a 40 person network or should I just not worry about that? There is a lot of marketing jargon on the website that all sounds nice but not sure what is actually needed for a set up like mine.
Do you know what devices will be connecting? Both sides need to support MU-MIMO to take full advantage of it. 40 devices doing video streaming is going to be a lot on a single AP, but really you’re going to saturate that 22mbps up pretty fast. We use Google Meet at work and it’s usually around 1mbps in each direction, but multi-user ones can spike the down quite a bit (4-5mbps is probably the highest I’ve seen). The enterprise version does have a “live stream” option if only a few people need to present but you’re over the 100/250 person limit. That wouldn’t work if you need two way interactions though.
Definitely make sure to keep anything that doesn’t need to be on the WiFi (e.g., personal phones) off. Most Chromebooks don’t seem to have built in Ethernet ports, otherwise, I’d also say to not rule out the hardwired option.
Thanks for the MU-MIMO information. Devices connected should be Chromebooks but still need to confirm that. I can set up more AP’s if needed. I may have to anyways depending how we arrange the kids in the facility. I have a wall between the lobby and playing surface that can really kill Wifi signal so I may need to put one AP in the lobby area and another out on the courts. This would split the kids up about 2/3 on the courts and 1/3 in the lobby area.
I’m already looking into bumping up the upload speed but it doesn’t seem like I can get much over 30Mbps, even at 1Gbps download.
Thanks for the MU-MIMO information. Devices connected should be Chromebooks but still need to confirm that. I can set up more AP’s if needed. I may have to anyways depending how we arrange the kids in the facility. I have a wall between the lobby and playing surface that can really kill Wifi signal so I may need to put one AP in the lobby area and another out on the courts. This would split the kids up about 2/3 on the courts and 1/3 in the lobby area.
I’m already looking into bumping up the upload speed but it doesn’t seem like I can get much over 30Mbps, even at 1Gbps download.
Ubiquiti is the way to go you need some enterprise equipment and control. The Ubiquiti software is rather powerful and much above my head in the networking space. Ubiquiti also lets you create your AP set up and layout with their controller software. You can download the controller to any PC or Mac, upload a layout of your building to figure out exactly how many APs you need. Take the guess work out of your configuration.
This would be my set up if I was in your shoes. You can always upgrade your incoming service if you need to once you have the set up in place.
From Ubiquity, to have the best control you need a Security Gateway and a Controller that is always online with available memory. This can be done in several manners.
Small Server cabinet = https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Open-Frame-Server-Rack/dp/B00P1RJ9LS/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=Server+rack&qid=1597502451&sr=8-3
UPS = https://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-Battery-Rack-Mount-SMART1500LCD/dp/B000DZRY9C/ref=sr_1_21?dchild=1&keywords=Server%2Brack&qid=1597502451&sr=8-21&th=1
Patch panel = https://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-Rackmount-Ethernet-N252-048/dp/B0000UUZIC/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=tripp%2Blite%2Bpatch%2Bpanel&qid=1597503033&sr=8-2&th=1
USG Pro + controller (you need the pro to set up the firewall correctly. The standard USG is 85Mb down with all firewalls turned on)
Or
The new Dream Machine + solid state hard drive = https://unifi-network.ui.com/dreammachine
Switch = https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-network-routing-switching/products/usw-24-poe
However many you need based on the Ubiquiti controller software. My guess is at least 4, maybe a few more. AC Pro APs = https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-network-access-points/products/unifi-ac-pro
You could bump up to the Nano, but that is probably overkill.
Good catch 6 wire, patch through ends, crimper, and wire stripper and away you go.
Alright so it looks like we will have about max 25 kids. Still on 220download/22upload as stated above. What do you think I should be looking for in upload speed? I plan to be getting upgraded hardware but still not sure of upload speed for this amount users.
If you can only get a cable modem solution vs. Fiber I’d recommend a 400/50Mbps- 500/50Mbps connection. You may get away with 300Mbps on the download side but your issue will be the upload if you have that many ppl streaming at once. For networking you’ll need 1 router and possibly a few 24 port switches depending on the number of kiddos or devices connected to your network. Depending on your budget I’d strongly look at a symmetrical data connection which means you have the same download and upload. Cable companies running Docsis 3.0 or 3.1 won’t be able to provide more than 250Mbps-500Mbps symmetrical based on their network architecture and node saturation. In our market our highest SMB DIA connection is 1Gbps/100Mbps for an asymmetrical but can deliver 1G/1Gbps on a symmetrical where we have fiber which is about 60% of 80K sub market.